


Reasons Both Wretched And Divine

by jessebee



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, DO NOT COPY TO ANY OTHER SITE OR APP, Developing Relationship, Hiding in Plain Sight, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Party Like It's 1999, Sith!Obi-Wan, Sith!Qui-Gon, it's Qui-Gon Jinn but not as we know him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2020-03-08 22:10:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18903640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessebee/pseuds/jessebee
Summary: Obi-Wan confronts his Master head-on after Qui-Gon summarily drops him in front of the High Council, but nothing goes as expected.(story absolutely inspired by norcumii’s and dogmatix’s most excellent Sith!Qui-Gon series"Through A Mirror Darkly"





	Reasons Both Wretched And Divine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [acatbyanyothername](https://archiveofourown.org/users/acatbyanyothername/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Start of the Line](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3810622) by [dogmatix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogmatix/pseuds/dogmatix), [norcumi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/norcumi/pseuds/norcumi). 



 

 

“You did that deliberately, didn’t you.”

Nothing about those words was a question.

Things were beginning now, as they must.

Qui-Gon closed his eyes, opened them, and continued on with making tea. He wanted one decent cup, just one, before his world imploded. “Did what?”

“That – scene in the Council Chamber,” Obi-Wan said, his voice flat and just barely this side of insolent. “You did that deliberately.”

“Watch your tone, Apprentice.”

“Apparently not.”

It seemed his world would disintegrate without fortification or comfort, then. As he deserved. Qui-Gon set his jaw and swung around, one eyebrow raised. “Not – ?”

“Not your Apprentice. Not anymore.”

No give in those expressive grey eyes, just a solid wall faintly backlit by a hint of the inferno raging behind.

Good.

Obi-Wan would need both the fire and the control leashing it to survive. As he had survived, brilliantly, for the last twelve years, in spite of Qui-Gon’s own fears and failures: a living conundrum – a _good_ Sith, hidden within the very heart of the Temple and a far, far better being than fully three-quarters of the Jedi around him.

Qui-Gon was so incredibly, _achingly,_ proud of him.

But – “You’ve not passed your Trials yet, child,” he drawled, throwing fuel at the blaze.

Obi-Wan didn’t flinch. “And yet you’ve already shoved me out of the den without so much as half a ‘farewell’ or even two seconds’ warning. Without caring that the Council would deny me and most surely deny you. Without caring what kind of, of crushing disappointment you’ve set that poor kid” – he jerked his chin towards Anakin, seemingly frozen by the window – “up for.”

“Obi-Wan – ”

“Without caring that you broke my heart.”

Obi-Wan’s voice caught, just a little, on the last word, and it tore into Qui-Gon’s own chest like a vibroblade.

“Why, Master?”

How? How, in all the Sith hells Dooku had forced him to endure, could Qui-Gon begin to answer that?

“Why?”

Qui-Gon snorted and turned back to his tea preparation, hoping without hope, the too-familiar caustic bitter-hot crawling up his throat, anger ( _fear_ ) struggling for control because only Obi-Wan could do this to him, only his beloved student, his –

“ _Damn you, Qui-Gon, answer me why!?”_

Scalding liquid sprayed everywhere as the tea mug shattered under Qui-Gon’s hand.  He whirled, a snarl vibrating in his chest and Darkness swirling around him, and took one step toward Obi-Wan.

A squeak and scrabble from Anakin’s direction; an acrid spike of fear like a Force flash-bang, vivid and incredibly loud and Qui-Gon _hated_ that, hated even more the trained instinct at the base of his brain that still, after more than three decades of fighting it, wanted to be _pleased_ by that fear.

Obi-Wan didn’t move.

But then, Obi-Wan had never been truly afraid of him. Obi-Wan had met Qui-Gon’s strength with his own from the very start, and it had had nothing to do with size. Oh, the boy’d been wary and cautious, yes, for those first months. But never afraid.

“Because _you_ \- _are_ \- _ready_ and you have been for _months now!”_ Qui-Gon was shouting by the last words, thickening the air. “And the boy _has_ to be trained!”

“By you – ”

“ _No!”_ Qui-Gon snapped.  “I am the _last_ person who should be training him and you damn-well know why! But when that collection of – ” he spit out a few choice epithets that had even Obi-Wan’s eyebrows on the rise “ – would just throw him away and cut their own idiot throats in the process, I had to – I thought – _gods!”_   He shook his head hard and breathed in, grabbing his emotions and pulling them in, forcing them down beneath his shields, tamping back the anger and Darkness before it brought half of the Jedi currently in-Temple down on them at a run.

Obi-Wan stared at him, grey-blue gaze slicing through Qui-Gon as if he was clear glass and his student light.  Which he was, of course.  “A _bluff._   And you thought they’d call it.”

“Yes!”  Qui-Gon only just managed not to grind his teeth. “Although why I even thought they’d see it, the blind – ! “

Obi-Wan straightened fractionally. “So you didn’t mean … ?”

Qui-Gon stared back at him a moment before the meaning clicked. “That you’re ready? I meant every kriffing word. You _are_ ready, Obi-Wan,” he growled.

Fuck but this was exhausting. He’d told himself that he was prepared for this but he wasn’t.  _Obi-Wan_ was – it was Qui-Gon himself who was not. “Months, perhaps as long as a year ago, I should have recommended you. What more you must learn, I cannot teach you. You’ll learn it on your own, the same as any Jedi Knight.”

“Then why didn’t you put me forward?” Obi-Wan asked, taking a step closer.

How could he answer that? He couldn’t answer that.

Another step. “Master?”

“I had my reasons,” Qui-Gon growled again, and turned away to survey the mess of tea and shattered pottery. His hand was stinging, he realized – oh. The hot water must have –

“Why?”

Bad as a youngling, Obi-Wan was, with his questions, worse in fact, and how – how was Qui-Gon supposed to live without those questions, without Obi-Wan, without –

“Qui-Gon.”

Worse than a damn gnawing pup and the anger ( _fear, fear_ ) was pushing words up in his chest and he couldn’t, couldn’t –

“Why?”

“Because you’ll leave me,” he ground out before he could stop, stop, gods, please stop, Obi-Wan –

A sharp catch of breath behind him.

“Qui-Gon?” Obi-Wan’s voice, that beautiful voice, unsteady now, emotions flaring through the Force but they weren’t anger, they were, they were –

Fingers touched the back of Qui-Gon’s arm, burning through two layers of tunic.

Damn. You.

Qui-Gon spun around.  Some part of his brain noted that it wasn’t his steadiest move; Qui-Gon promptly told that part to fuck right the kriffing hells off. “Because I don’t want to lose you!  Because I love you! _Is that what you wanted to hear?!”_

Someone's breath caught again, hard.

Obi-Wan’s eyes lit from within, fire raging again but a different one this time.  No walls, no controls, just happiness erupting, blazing out like a star going nova, brilliant in the Force.

“Yes,” he said through a broad, shaky smile, and Qui-Gon could only watch in stunned amazement, anger-fear derailed by something far more dangerous as Obi-Wan stepped in close and raised both hands to frame Qui-Gon’s face, pulled him down, and kissed him on the mouth.

“Yes.” The word whispered across Qui-Gon’s tingling lips when Obi-Wan retreated only far enough to see his eyes.

Qui-Gon’s mind blanked of everything except Obi-Wan, and he stared at the moisture gathering on his student’s lower lashes.

“Yes,” Obi-Wan whispered one more time. “That’s what I wanted to hear.” His hands stayed cupped around Qui-Gon’s jaw and they burned like brands and that was... That was _wonderful_.

“Finally,” his apprentice-almost-no-more muttered in affectionate disgust. “You just could not bring yourself to make this easy, could you?”

Wait. What?  Reluctantly Qui-Gon’s brain kicked back into gear.  “ … you knew?”

Obi-Wan shook his head, dislodging a fragment of wet sheen.  Qui-Gon watched in fascination as it tracked slowly downward, a tiny, glimmering star anointing pale skin, until Obi-Wan’s voice brought his focus back. “Hoped. I knew I was ready. For the Jedi Trials, at least.”

“You _knew.”_   Sweet Force, he needed more vocabulary.

A vaguely sheepish look came over Obi-Wan’s mobile face, and he freed one hand to swipe across his cheek. “Yes. You’ve taught me to know my abilities and my own mind, so – yes, I knew. But when you didn’t speak, I wondered: _did_ I know? Was there something I was missing? Or … Could it be maybe, just maybe, you weren’t completely sick of my company yet?”

“As if I could be,” Qui-Gon rumbled, amazed all over again. Joy and yes, _love_ , by all the little inked and whiskered gods, were filling his chest until it was all he could do to breathe. And who needed air, anyway?

He leaned down and dared kisses of his own, lipping salt from a warm cheek, and then gently, gently kissed Obi-Wan’s mouth, thrilling when it opened for him and he tasted his apprentice for the first time.  So softly – no passion yet, that would come later, he could feel it at the edges but this, now – this was love and welcome and relief, and comfort. And belonging.

When the kiss broke this time, Qui-Gon moved his hands from where they’d come to rest, at Obi-Wan’s waist, and wound them around his student’s shoulders, urging him close. Obi-Wan settled against and almost into him, arms coming around Qui-Gon’s own waist, rubbing his face against the vee of skin where Qui-Gon’s tunics didn’t meet and letting out a deep, deep sigh.

The part of Qui-Gon that was always on guard noticed that Anakin had crept closer again, probably encouraged by the shift of emotional currents in the room, but Qui-Gon didn’t care.  All he cared about, in this moment, was the man in his arms.  He nosed into short copper hair, smelling sweat and soap and the Obi-Wan-ness scent that had been part of these, his, their rooms for years, and snarled at the little mental voice wondering when this would all go to pieces around him.

“I won’t leave you, you know,” Obi-Wan muttered into Qui-Gon’s tabard.

“Of course you will,” Qui-Gon said, and Force help him he didn’t know if he was laughing or crying. “That’s the entire point of the last twelve years.”

“The point,” Obi-Wan said, “I believe, was to train me up to be the best–Force user I could be, and you have. You’ve given me everything: your wisdom–”

Qui-Gon snorted, and Obi-Wan flicked hard fingers against his ribs. “Don’t disrespect my Master, you.”  Throat tight, Qui-Gon kissed the crown of his head.

“Wisdom, knowledge, caring. Love,” Obi-Wan murmured, voice pitched just between the two of them. “How to take the Dark and use it to serve the Light, to _make_ _it_ serve the Light–everything the Jedi swear isn’t possible, you do.”

“Obi-Wan …”

“There’s no one better to train Anakin; I doubt any of them even could. There’s incredible danger, such tremendous fear.  _They_ would only insist he release it and then ignore it when he can’t, but you– ”  Obi-Wan looked up at him. “You can teach him how to live with it, how to use it – instead of it using him.  It must be you.”

Qui-Gon tilted his head.  “A change of tune, this is, from you.”

Obi-Wan snickered at that, and then a faint hint of color warmed the tips of his ears.  “Yes, well. I … thought I was being shoved aside; I was hurt. I … was jealous.”

Jealous. Which meant – “You don’t want to leave me, then.”

“What have I just been saying?” Obi-Wan eyed him like he was a slow but beloved crècheling, in that way only Obi-Wan could do. “Of course I don’t. I love you. But I can share – that part of you, the teaching part, with Anakin, now that I know the rest of you is mine.”

A laugh rumbled through Qui-Gon’s chest and he felt curiously warm, as if parts of him that had been closed for years were opening to the sunlight. “I am?”

Obi-Wan rested his head against Qui-Gon’s chest again and sighed. “Pay attention, Master. Yes, you are. And I’m not letting you go.”

 * * *

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> acatbyanothername93 said:
> 
>   _Hello. From @davaia prompts, can I request in dialogues that tug at those heartstrings: "You never cared that you broke my heart." ? Thank you so much!_
> 
>    
> It only took about a year and a day, acatbyanothername, but here's your prompt at last. Hopefully you'll think it was worth the wait.
> 
> Thanks to sanerontheinside and meggory84 for beta-thwappage and pointing out those pesky things I really ought to fix - you folks are priceless. ❤️❤️❤️ And huge-ass bonus points to anybody who recognizes where that last tag came from _winks_
> 
> Finished and posted for the "Party Like It's 1999-20th Anniversary Edition" on tumblr  
> https://quiobi-lover.tumblr.com/post/182758944388/party-like-its-1999-the-phantom-menace-20th


End file.
